16 STATES OP THE EIVER PLATE. 



them away, leaving the bare soil, into the dust of which 

 the seed is shaken, and out of which it sprouts with the 

 autumn rains. On such lands the sheep and cattle pick a 

 scanty subsistence from the roots and seeds in summer. 

 In a season of continued drought they no longer find this 

 food, and die in numbers. 



The aspect of the country or camp in the summer and 

 commencement of autumn presents a marked contrast to 

 the other seasons. All is parched and brown ; the thistle 

 has dried and disappeared ; the trifolium, in like manner ; 

 in the lands where there are tall grasses, they too, are 

 brown and fallen : under the shelter of these, however, 

 if there have been a few summer showers, young grasses 

 spring up, and this tender herbage and the dry grasses 

 intermingled, constitute good food ; and when there is 

 water, the animals do well. In great droughts, on the 

 other hand, all lakes and most of the brooks and streams 

 are dried up, so that if there is no means on an esta- 

 blishment (which through improvidence there sometimes 

 is not) to draw water from wells sunk for the purpose, 

 immense loss is sustained ; cattle die by thousands, and 

 others stray away to great distances in search of water ; 

 the majority of those which have not perished returning 

 to the land on which they were bred, on the reappearance 

 of a better state of things. Sheep farmers have occasion, 

 in districts visited by drought in an unusual degree, to 

 travel their sheep to other lands, taking them many 

 leagues. It is, however, only in an extreme case when 

 this has to be done, and generally this necessity arises 

 on those estabhshments where over-stocking has been 

 practised. 



The seed-pods of the trifolium (medick clover) are a 

 great detriment to the wool of tlie sheep of Buenos Ayres 

 when the shearing is delayed to the season of the ripening, 



